Asbestos Lawsuits in the US

By Masham Sheraz

Asbestos litigation is known to be the longest-running, most expensive mass tort in U.S. history, proof of which is the fact that it involves more than 8,000 defendants and 700,000 claimants. Legal claims for injuries from asbestos involve more plaintiffs, more defendants and higher costs than any other type of personal injury litigation. Some analysts have estimated that the total costs of asbestos litigation in the USA alone will eventually reach $200 to $275 billion in the years to come.

The main driving forces at the back of asbestos litigation are the diseases caused by exposure to asbestos; mesothelioma, asbestosis and cancer are just a few of these. There are no known cures for the cancers, and the seriousness of them has led plaintiffs to push for more information from current and former employers. Current trends indicate that the rate at which people are diagnosed with the disease will likely increase through the next decade.

PRISM - new cross border infringement on privacy

By YLH

As someone who considers himself a great admirer of the US legal system, the American belief in constitutional rights and personal freedoms,  recent developments in the US vis a vis NSA's PRISM has saddened me greatly. I feel shattered, cheated - almost as if I have believed in a lie all these years.  One always suspected that there may be some surveillance but to think that it would be so widespread - worse than fiction (remember Enemy of the State?)- it is just mind blowing.  Remember we are talking of surveillance that goes beyond anything the former Soviet Union was guilty of.  What then of the leader of the free world?

English and Nordic Models of Secularism

By Yasser Latif Hamdani

My earliest understanding of secularism was rooted in the first amendment to the US Constitution while studying in the US. It is the most impressive dictum - a wall of separation between religion and state. The US never had a state church. Its tradition of separation of church and state went back to the founding of Rhode Island which was based on this principle. The Turkish model - especially after Kemal Ataturk's famous 6 day speech - which abolished state religion in 1928 (though initially the Turkish Republic defined Islam as the state religion at Ataturk's behest) also seemed to follow the American and more closely the French models of secularism. The difference between American and French (and Turkish) models was that the latter was an ideology of the state whereby religion was pushed out and not left alone.

Handling Divorces World Wide. Questions to ask yourself and your divorce lawyer.

Divorce is a horrible, horrible thing but can be a necessary evil.  However, more and more Americans and people all over the world are getting divorced. In this blog we will explain what you should look for when looking for a Divorce Lawyer or  Divorce Attorney.

1. First and foremost- you need to identify what it is that you need a divorce lawyer for? 

Ask yourself these questions:

a. Is your divorce contested or uncontested?

b. Have you amicably decided the asset division?

c. What law does your jurisdiction have?  Laws differ on the basis of jurisdiction. You would need an expert on the local law and someone - in certain cases- who is an expert in conflict of laws.

d. Was there a prenuptial agreement? Is there a post-nuptial agreement?

Restraining Orders including temporary restraining orders and domestic violence restraining orders

By Yasser Latif Hamdani

This article will explain the process of getting a restraining order in the US:

What is a restraining order?

A restraining order is a court order - a civil order- designed to protect a party from someone who that party legitimately feels threatened by. In most cases this falls in the definition of Domestic Violence. The most obvious case where one party may seek a restraining order is a case of domestic violence.  If you are in an abusive relationship you may have a case against your partner for a restraining order.

David Bernick: The Devil's (Successful) Advocate

This is the stuff of the movies.

W R Grace, a giant corporation, was accused of contaminating a town in Montana with asbestos. It became one of the biggest cases of contamination by asbestos in US history.

In what looked like a sure loser of a case, W R Grace hired the services of David Bernick. This master litigator got them acquitted in 2009 after arguing that the EPA special investigator had a "special relationship" with one of the star witnesses.

Sample Will and Testament

This document is a very basic template of a will. Consult a lawyer to prepare a proper will.

1. This is my last Will and Testament, all other Wills and Testaments of mine stand cancelled.

2. I appoint [         ] as my executrix and executors and also my trustees.

3. All shares, stocks & securities and current accounts now standing in the name of my [                                ]are [              ]

4. I now hereby bequeath [ REAL PROPERTY  ]  as it stands absolutely and he/she can dispose of it in any manner she pleases by will, deed or otherwise.

5. I also direct my executors to pay [            ] over [         ]


6. I direct my executors to pay the following by way of gifts to the institutions/charities mentioned below:

7. Subject to above, all my residuary estate including the corpus that may fall after the lapse of life interests or otherwise to be [              ]

Sd/______________

Attesting witnesses

You may also contact YLH&Co for a Will and Testament especially if you are unwilling to dole out heavy amounts to your Lawyers or Solicitors in the US or UK.

 

What are mitigating circumstances

What are mitigating circumstances?

Events or facts that can reduce the level of blame for a person's act, but that note enough to excuse it are known as mitigating circumstances.

Suppose Jordan went to his dentist to have a tooth extracted. The procedure went awry and Jordan ended up in the hospital for six weeks, fighting a life threatening infection. When he recovered, he sued the dentist and filed a claim against him with the state board of dentistry. Although Jordan's dentist did not dispute it was mishandled, he claimed that personal problems - such as a bitter divorce - had impaired his professional skills. He provided evidence of psychological counselling to help him overcome these problems and pointed out that Jordan's complaint was the only one brought against him in 20 years of practice.

By introducing the information in the court Jordan's dentist was able to reduce the severity of punishment. 

Pakistan's so called "Feminists"

Imagine waging a grand struggle for something for 30 odd years and still being unable to make even a small incremental change towards your goal. Pakistan’s so-called feminist movement is a story of foibles, missed opportunities, humongous egos and personal enrichment. Meanwhile, in Pakistan, a woman’s testimony is considered half that of a man in terms of financial transactions, and Hudood Laws for all intents and purposes continue to infringe upon women’s personal freedoms. The little progress that women have made, and it is pathetically little, over the last 30 years has come from outside the influence of the cabal of feminist activists. In fact, at every opportunity, these feminists have tried to bring down people who have tried to speak for women’s rights and equality from a non-gender based perspective on the basis of equality of citizenship regardless of gender.

Levin v. United States - the Arguments

Argument recap: Could Congress be any clearer in waiving the government’s immunity?

By Kevin Amer of ScotusBlog.com 

On Tuesday, January 15, the Court heard arguments in Levin v. United States, which – as discussed in our preview – presents the question whether the Gonzalez Act waived the United States’s sovereign immunity as to battery claims arising from the conduct of military medical personnel.  As the argument unfolded, it became apparent that most of the Justices would likely answer that question in the affirmative – at least if they were to treat it as an ordinary question of statutory interpretation and were not required to apply a heightened “strict construction” standard.  Thus, the government’s counsel faced the formidable task of persuading the Court not only that such a standard should apply in this case, but that the Gonzalez Act’s seemingly unambiguous waiver language does not meet it.

Legal Protection for Investors: Securities and Exchange Commission

Both federal and state governments have departments to protect investors by requiring corporations to disclose all necessary information to help investors decide whether to buy proposed bonds, notes and stocks. These governmental departments and agencies were created because of lessons learned over many years. When you want to invest you go to the offices of an established brokerage house. Such houses are registered with the appropriate state agency and with the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington DC. Almost all brokerage houses also have departments for handling their customers orders. 

Before the creation of SEC in 1934, protection of the investor was done by the state. Many of the states adopted blue sky laws requiring registration and approval by the state agencies of the sale of securities in certain industries - such as mining and oil- where the investor had no way of checking the veracity of the facts given.

Even today these agencies work where SEC does not. The New York State Attorney General's office for example is the only governmental department that requires the filing of full information regarding the sale to residents of New York of land in other states. 

The SEC comes in when the company needs more money than it can raise locally and will have to go to an underwriter for professional assistance. The SEC supervises the daily operations of the securities markets and has a plethora of regulations to protect consumers i.e. investors. 

Religious Freedom Lawsuit

Teacher Files Lawsuit Over religious Freedom

By Lou Chilelli

January 10, 2013 Updated Jan 10, 2013 at 11:52 PM EST TOWN OF CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. (WKBW)
There is a dispute over religious rights in Cheektowaga. A Cheektowaga Central School District worker says the district is restricting her right to religious free speech. An anonymous complaint by a student has now lead the teacher to file a lawsuit against a school district. Lawyers for the American Freedom Law Center filed a civil rights lawsuit in Federal Court on behalf of Joelle Silver, a high school science teacher.

"In June of this past year, the school district gave her a "counseling letter" which prohibited her from displaying anything in her classroom that had any religious content or had any religious nature to it what so ever," said Robert J. Muise, a lawyer and one of the founders of the American Freedom Law Center.
The Cheektowaga Central School District was reacting to a student's complaint they received through the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The foundation's letter threatened their own lawsuit, if the teacher did not remove religious materials from her classroom. "We handed it over to our school attorney, who in turn, went to our insurance company and their council...their council went to a constitutional expert. He basically came back to us and said that we feel it is best that you need to take certain action," said school district Superintendent Dennis Kane.
That action was a counseling letter ordering Silver to remove the religious items from her classroom. "The Supreme Court has long said that neither teachers nor students shed their constitutional rights at the school house gate. And, certainly these restrictions violate that fundamental principal. She is a devout Christian. She does not cease being a Christian because she works for the government,' Muise added.
"We were told by legal advise that these things were a violation of church and state and as a public entity and as public officials we have to comply with the law. We have a duty to correct," Kane explained. The superintendent limited his comments because of the ongoing legal matter and because he sees this as a personnel issue. The district has not yet seen a copy of the lawsuit. Silver continues to teach high school science.

Defining obscenity legally

Defining obscenity in legal terms is a challenge that has elded lawmakers for decades. In its broadest sense, obscenity is any material that appeals to a prurient interest in sex, nudity, genitatlia or excretion that has no socially redeeming, literary, political, scientific or artistic value when judged by an average person applying community standards.

Indian Court Limits Frivolous Drug Patenting, Clearing Path to Affordable Medicines

From Open Society.org

Should pharmaceutical patents—which result in monopolistic pricing of medicines—apply to any new drug, regardless of how it was made and whether it offers anything new?
This question was answered recently in a courageous decision by the Intellectual Property Appellate Board of India (IPAB), in a suit brought by Open Society Foundations’ grantee the Lawyers Collective on behalf of Sankalp Rehabilitation Trust, a Mumbai organization that works with drug dependent patients. In this case, IPAB ruled to revoke the patent held by the pharmaceutical company Roche for its hepatitis C drug, Pegasys, on the grounds that the process used to develop the medicine was not novel or innovative enough to warrant a patent. Since patented Pegasys costs between US$10,000-15,000 per treatment, this ruling is an important first step toward making hepatitis C medicines more accessible by allowing for future production of more affordable generics. 

US v. State over Marijuana Usage

'His lawyers appealed this month to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to halt what they suggested was a prosecution at odds with Justice Department policies to avoid prosecutions of medical marijuana users and with President Obama’s statement that the government has “bigger fish to fry” than recreational marijuana users.

“Does this mean that the federal government will be prosecuting individuals throughout California, Washington, Colorado and elsewhere who comply with state law permitting marijuana use, or is the Davies case merely a rogue prosecutor out of step with administration and department policy?” asked Elliot R. Peters, one of his lawyers.

“This is not a case of an illicit drug ring under the guise of medical marijuana,” Mr. Peters wrote. “Here, marijuana was provided to qualified adult patients with a medical recommendation from a licensed physician. Records were kept, proceeds were tracked, payroll and sales taxes were duly paid.” '

Read More here

US Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act

The Federal Government controls drugs in interstate commerce through the captioned act. The basic purpose of the act is to protect public health by making sure that drugs are pure, safe and effective when used as intended. The act also protects consumers from dangerous drugs, misleading labels, and fraud. This exercise of federal authority does not affect the power each state to control drugs within its own territories provided its laws are consistent with the federal law.

Fair trial and its essentials in the age of terrorism

By Barrister Amjad Malik

This paper was read at the SCBA conference recently.

Two thousand years ago, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman philosopher, orator, lawyer, and politician, once stated that

"The soul, mind, and meaning of a State lie in its Laws".

That is, laws are a reflection of the state's mindset and commitment to fight issues like terrorism and target killings.

9/11 changed the world and internal security and anti-terrorism laws all over the world were no exception to this change. The most visible change was observed at the global lawmakers’ reaction against the emerging threats of terrorism and how they devised new ways and mechanisms to deter these threats. Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA’s) all around the globe got special powers to cope with the emerging internal security challenges.

What every Pakistani lawyer should know! How to make a living as a lawyer in Pakistan

By Yasser Latif Hamdani

I am a lawyer with six years of experience who is now in a position to make some what of a living from the legal profession. It is in this capacity that I would like to give all lawyers and law students advice.

To begin with if your dad is not a judge or a leading lawyer or extremely well connected in the power circles of Pakistan  and you have decided to pursue a legal career in Pakistan, know that you are a hero, most probably a tragic hero but a hero nonetheless. You don't need to read this article. You are beyond help. If on the other hand you are a budding law student working towards a law degree - you need to read this article to make a more informed career choice.

Gender Stratification, Homosexuality and the American constitution

By Yasser Latif Hamdani

The ethos of the American society has been informed by two main influences:  One the Puritan Christian values inherited from European immigrants primarily from England but also other places and two the harsh conditions the immigrants faced in the wilderness of a new land which necessitated a protected environment for what was deemed as the weaker sex. Christian society in its essence was a patriarchal society and the same traditional patriarchy was carried across the Atlantic by the early colonists. The primordial roles of the man as the hunter/gatherer (and by extrapolation merchant, soldier, ruler) and woman as the homemaker and mother of the man’s children have been ossified to an extent that even in this advanced age, we are unable to break through it entirely.[1]

Apple v. Samsung

By Yasser Latif Hamdani

So the die is now cast against Samsung and the reason is that Samsung is an Asian and not an American company. At least that is the clearest message one gets from the recently concluded Apple v. Samsung suit in California.

I am an I-phone user and I consider Android Phones at best a cheap immitation but I fear that the judgment awarding Apple US $ 1 billion in damages is not only too excessive but it amounts to a judicial intervention in competition. How can rectangles with rounded corners be a patent upheld by a court of law? Perhaps the courts should also consider awarding billions of dollars in damages to XEROX whose personal computer design Apple stole many moons ago.